Archives March 2025

President Donald Trump on Tuesday is set to give what will be his first address to a joint session of Congress since he was reelected. Tariffs against products from Canada and Mexico are also set to go into effect Tuesday, Trump announced last week, along with the doubling of the existing tariff on goods from China.

Market participants may look forward to comments this week from Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman and New York Fed President John Williams ahead of the blackout period. The latest jobs report for February, due Friday, could be in the spotlight as well, amid concerns about emerging weakness in the labor market.

Updates to consumer credit levels, the U.S. trade balance, factory orders, and manufacturing and Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) surveys are also expected, along with scheduled earnings from Broadcom (AVGO), Costco (COST), Target (TGT), and others.

Monday, March 3

• S&P manufacturing PMI (February)
• ISM manufacturing PMI (February)
• Construction spending (January)
• St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem is scheduled to deliver remarks
• Okta (OKTA) and GitLab (GTLB) are scheduled to report earnings

Tuesday, March 4

• President Donald Trump is scheduled to address joint session of Congress
• New York Fed President John Williams is scheduled to deliver remarks
• CrowdStrike (CRWD), Target, AutoZone (AZO), Ross Stores (ROST), Best Buy (BBY), and Nordstrom (JWN) are scheduled to report earnings

Wednesday, March 5

• ADP employment (February)
• S&P services PMI (February)
• ISM services PMI (February)
• Factory orders (January)
• Federal Reserve Beige Book
• Marvell Technology (MRVL), Veeva Systems (VEEV), Zscaler (ZS), MongoDB (MDB), Campbell’s (CPB), Brown-Forman (BF.A), and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) are scheduled to report earnings

Thursday, March 6

• Initial jobless claims (Week ending March 1)
• U.S. trade deficit (January)
• U.S. productivity – final (Q4)
• Wholesale inventories (January)
• Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic is scheduled to deliver remarks
• Broadcom, Costco, Kroger (KR), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Burlington Stores (BURL), Gap (GAP), and Macy’s (M) are scheduled to report earnings

Friday, March 7

• U.S. employment report (February)
• Consumer credit (January)
• Fed Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman and New York Fed President John Williams are scheduled to deliver remarks
• Final day before Federal Reserve blackout period ahead of March 18-19 meeting

Trump To Address Congress as Tariffs Take Effect

President Trump is set to address a joint session of Congress at 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday, March 4. The address could offer an opportunity for Trump to lay out his agenda and highlight his administration’s early actions, including the tariffs scheduled to take effect the same day.

Fresh Jobs Report To Come Amid Focus on Labor Market

The February jobs report scheduled for Friday comes after employers added fewer positions than expected last month, raising worries the labor market may be softening. Those concerns were reinforced last week when jobless claims came in higher than expected.

Reports on weekly initial jobless claims and private sector hiring in February are due earlier in the week. Federal Reserve officials have pointed to strength in the labor market as helping influence their recent decision not to lower interest rates at their January meeting. 

Fed Officials To Speak Ahead of Blackout Period

It’s the last week for Federal Reserve officials to deliver remarks before the start of the blackout period ahead of the March 18-19 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman, New York Fed President John Williams, and Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic are scheduled to give remarks. The Fed’s latest Beige Book is also due for release Wednesday, offering a qualitative review of economic conditions.

Several economic indicators this week could provide updates on the health of the manufacturing and services sectors, including PMI survey results for February, wholesale inventories data, U.S. fourth quarter productivity, and factory orders. January consumer credit data could also provide insight into the strength of consumers, coming as retailers like Walmart (WMT) have projected lower-than-expected sales growth in coming quarters.

Earnings Due From Broadcom, Target, Costco and More

Broadcom is set to report earnings Thursday, after chip stocks sold off last week in the wake of Nvidia’s (NVDA) earnings. Nvidia’s results surpassed Street estimates, but they may not have been good enough for investors amid some concerns about AI spending and economic uncertainty. Analysts have so far largely remained bullish on Nvidia’s stock as well as Broadcom’s, pointing to the chipmakers’ potential to benefit from growing AI demand.

Other tech companies scheduled to report this week include Marvell Technology, HP Enterprise, MongoDB, GitLab, CrowdStrike, Zscaler, and Okta. Several big retailers are also scheduled to release quarterly results, with Ross Stores, Best Buy, and Target reporting Tuesday, with Costco set to follow on Thursday.

Kroger’s report Thursday follows the grocery chain’s weak report last quarter and represents the first since its failed efforts to merge with Albertsons (ACI).

Editor’s Note: As any investor knows, it can be difficult to know when to buy or sell a stock. That’s why I’m such an admirer of TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan.

To improve his own investing, Keith developed software to help him identify the best times to buy and sell a stock.

In a guest essay today, Keith shares an amazing story about how the system he helped develop saved his portfolio before the Covid crash of 2020, and how it helped him to grow his wealth in the historic run that followed.

After you read this, you’ll want to sign up for Keith’s event on Thursday, February 27 at 8 p.m. Eastern. He’s calling it The Last Melt-Up – and in this special event, you’ll learn how Keith’s system works and why it’s so accurate. You’ll also learn why he’s got his eye on an ultra-rare pattern that has only appeared in the markets three times going back 125 years. You can click here to sign up for your free spot now.

In the meantime, I’ll let Keith share his story and tell you more about the alert that saved his portfolio…

It was one of the most difficult moments of my professional life … but I had saved my portfolio!

It was early 2020 and I had flown to Florida to meet with a group of 50 of my peers where each of us pitched our best and biggest investment ideas.

Person after person was pitching greedy parts of the market that they believed were ready to soar.

When it was my turn, I told them all “I sold almost all my stocks on Friday.”

As you would imagine, I was not the most popular person in the room.

I urged people to protect their investments and consider warning their subscribers that a bear market was rapidly approaching.

I even showed them proof of how I knew we were headed toward the fastest bear market in history — one that would catch everyone by surprise and destroy years of wealth building.

I showed them the alerts I received and then how accurate these alerts have been over the last 20 years.

I was laughed at and told not to panic. Not a single person in the room wanted to hear what I had to say. And I understand why; the CNN Fear and Greed Index at the time was nearing extreme greed levels.

Why would they want to hear a bearish alarm?

But anyone who acted on my systems advice saved their portfolio … and then made even more money when the system signaled it was time to get back in.

In the last 20 years, we’ve only made the system better…

And we are on the verge of another change in the market’s direction. One that you can be ahead of, while everyone else depends on outdated indicators.

The Alert That Saved My Portfolio

I remember it like yesterday.

On a Friday, Feb. 27, I had received a big, bearish alert from our system.

It basically said, “Run for the hills and sell your stocks.”

At the time I knew almost nothing about COVID-19 and I didn’t know how markets would react to what was coming.

But I did know that I trust our system, so the very next day, I sold nearly all my stocks.

Over the weekend, a quick stop into Target with my family gave us an early glimpse into the world of panic buying and hoarding we can all remember. We noticed a woman with a cart FULL of nothing but Clorox wipes.

Clearly, there was panic in the air, and we were just starting to see and feel it for the first time.

But I knew I didn’t have to panic about my portfolio.

Our system’s alerts are based on proprietary algorithms we created years ago and that routinely test and update. They’re based on momentum and short- and long-term trends. And they’re eerily accurate!

Here are the five most recent drawdowns prior to that day…

Obviously, a lot has changed since then. Indeed, we experienced the fastest bear market onset in history.

But we also experienced one of the fastest recoveries in the history of markets. We haven’t looked back, except for a few small setbacks.

The Alert That Lead to Profits

In 2020, my personal portfolio was saved a huge loss thanks to the indicators I got.

And, just a month later, our indicators did it again, alerting me to a bullish set up in the markets.

This signal has been almost always right over 40 years of use and testing:

By this time the CNN Fear and Greed Index had plummeted to extreme fear and people were nervous.

Heck, I was nervous!

But again, I trusted the math and these signals, and I took action. I started gobbling up stocks that had big pullbacks and were noted “healthy” in our system by their green designation.

Boy was that the right decision!

Look what the market did the rest of the year!

As you can tell, I love our products and can’t wait to reveal more to you over the next few days.

In fact, it all started for us years ago when we invented what I call the “single most important number in investing.” And next week, on Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. Eastern, I’ll be unveiling the prediction in TradeSmith’s 20-year history. You can register to hear this prediction for free right here.

Thank you and all the best.

Warm regards,

Keith Kaplan

CEO, TradeSmith

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd. (HKEX) are considering whether to ease initial public offering rules for mainland Chinese companies.

Christopher Hui, the territory’s secretary for financial services and the treasury, said at a recent conference in Shenzhen that the bourse pledged to ease listing requirements for Chinese firms. The mainland regards the Special Administrative Region’s (SAR) capital markets as a valuable source of funding in realizing their wider global expansion goals.

Observers expect local markets watchdog and HKEX to propose amendments by the end of the year. Regulators conducting comprehensive studies are expected to showcase proposed measures to better the current fundraising system, Hui said at a meeting of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Financial Cooperation Committee in mid-February.

Hong Kong’s IPO market is still shaking off a multi-year slump as more mainland Chinese-listed firms seek dual listings on the SEHK.

Mainland firms are keen to learn the degree to which the territory’s regulators will streamline application procedures and lower listing requirements. HKEX figures indicate that, in January, the exchange received 30 IPO applications in January, including seven A+H applications for firms already possessing mainland-listed (A) shares that wanted to add Hong Kong (H) shares, or H shares.

According to Bonnie Chan, HKEX’s CEO, nearly 100 companies were in the city’s IPO pipeline as of January.

In February, electric vehicle battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) submitted listing documents to HKEX. The Ningde-based company will likely raise $5 billion—potentially the SAR’s biggest IPO in more than four years. Proceeds from the proposed IPO will help enhance mainland EV supply chain dominance.

In recent years, Hong Kong regulators have emphasized the importance of closer links between capital markets to uplift the mainland economy. They also stressed the SAR’s role as a bridge between mainland Chinese and global markets, while promising to create more cross-border investment mechanisms to facilitate increased capital flows. CATL, the world’s largest producer of batteries for electric vehicles, said proceeds from the proposed IPO would reinforce its global expansion, which would enhance China’s dominance in the EV supply chain.

New circulating commemorative:

“2nd coin from the new Pre-Columbian ceramics series: Moche culture“

TECHNICAL DATA
Composition: copper-nickel-zinc
Diameter: 25.50 mm
Weight: 7.32 g
Mintage: 10 million



(news from David Velarde and Juozapas Žygas)
(image from www.bcrp.gob.pe)

LINK: Banco Central de Reserva del Perú

Stocks hit a rough patch in February as the AI rally’s momentum waned and Wall Street grew antsier about an increasingly uncertain economic outlook.

The S&P 500 fell 1.4% last month, giving back a big chunk of its January gains, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 4% to post its worst month since April as investors sold off some of last year’s favorite AI stocks.

Fourth-quarter earnings season will completely wind down in March, leaving Wall Street with far less to distract from this month’s economic data and the likely torrent of headlines out of Washington. Below, we look at stocks investors should keep an eye on this month.

Nvidia

Nvidia (NVDA) will host its annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC), which analysts have dubbed the “Woodstock of AI,” between March 17 to 21, with CEO Jensen Huang set to deliver a keynote address at 10 a.m. PT on March 18.

“We have some really exciting things to share with you guys at GTC,” CEO Jensen Huang said on Nvidia’s earnings call on Wednesday. He promised updates on its new Blackwell Ultra chip, expected to roll out later this year, and its next-generation Vera Rubin architecture. 

Nvidia shares have been under pressure all year after a massive run-up following ChatGPT’s November 2022 release. The company lost nearly $600 billion in market value after Chinese start-up DeepSeek released an open-source AI model that required far fewer Nvidia chips than comparable American models. 

Some on Wall Street argued the sell-off was a buying opportunity, and that DeepSeek’s efficiency was likely to benefit Nvidia in the long run. Huang echoed those sentiments on Wednesday, telling analysts that DeepSeek’s R1 had “ignited global enthusiasm” and driven innovation in reasoning models, which, Huang said, “can require 100x more compute per task compared to one-shot inferences.” 

Nvidia shares gained 4% in February but are down 7% so far in 2025.

Tesla

Tesla (TSLA) shares fell 28% in February as investors grew increasingly concerned about the time CEO Elon Musk is spending culling the federal workforce. 

Musk has become deeply involved with President Donald Trump’s administration as the unofficial leader of the Department of Government Efficiency’s campaign against government spending. He has even held a press conference in the Oval Office and attended Trump’s first cabinet meeting, despite not being a Senate-confirmed cabinet member. 

Some investors have expressed fears that Musk’s government work will distract him from leading Tesla at a critical juncture for the EV maker. Musk has said he’s aiming to roll out full self-driving software and a Cybercab this year, a lofty goal that underpins Musk’s ambition to make Tesla a leader in not just electric vehicles, but in AI and autonomous vehicles.   

Besides possibly distracting him, Musk’s DOGE work has risked tarnishing the Tesla brand. European registrations, a proxy for sales, were down 45% in January from the prior year, a precipitous drop that may be linked to public blowback against Musk’s controversial support for far-right politics on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Investors will be watching this month to see if pushback against DOGE from Congressional Democrats, federal workers, and courts makes Musk even more consumed by his work in Washington.

Target

Target (TGT) is set to report earnings for the three months through January before markets open on March 4. 

The report comes just a couple of weeks after Walmart (WMT), Target’s largest competitor, spooked Wall Street with a conservative full-year outlook. Walmart estimated net sales growth and operating income growth would slow this year. Its earnings forecast also fell short of Wall Street’s estimates. 

Walmart’s report came a week after data showed Americans significantly reined in their spending in January after a strong holiday shopping season. That data, along with signs of stubborn inflation and uncertainty around President Trump’s ever-changing tariff plans, has helped cloud the economic outlook, putting market participants on edge. 

Discretionary purchases make up a higher share of sales at Target than at Walmart or Costco (COST), which makes its sales slightly more sensitive to shifts in consumer preference and sentiment. Its January results and near-term outlook could clarify or add color to Walmart’s tepid forecast. 

Target shares fell 9% last month, putting the stock down 8.1% year-to-date. 

Momentum Stocks

Investors showed signs of souring on the AI trade last month, dealing a big blow to the market’s highest-flying stocks. 

Palantir (PLTR), Applovin (APP), and Vistra (VST), three of the year’s best-performing stocks were among the worst performers in the second half of February. Palantir shares finished February 32% off their mid-month high. Applovin fell 38% from its all-time high in the last two weeks of the month. Vistra, despite topping earnings estimates late in the month, has lost a third of its value since hitting a record in late January. 

The stocks, all of which more than tripled in value last year, had at times appeared unstoppable in their ascent. Applovin soared nearly 50% in a single day last November when it handily topped earnings estimates. Palantir stock jumped more than 20% after each of its two most recent earnings reports. 

That changed last month as economic uncertainty and moderating growth at AI bellwether Nvidia bridled the optimism fueling the AI rally. Investors will be eyeing these and other momentum stocks closely for signs of a bottom or acceleration of last month’s slump. 

Lennar

Homebuilder Lennar (LEN) is scheduled to report quarterly results on March 12. Investors will be paying special attention to executives’ comments on Trump’s protectionist trade policies.

Lennar will be the first major homebuilder to post results after Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports, which as scheduled to go into effect on March 4. CoreLogic estimates Trump’s North American tariffs would raise homebuilding costs by 4% to 6% within 12 months of being implemented. Canadian lumber, Chinese steel, Mexican and Canadian concrete, and appliances are all imports that could cost more under Trump’s tariffs.

Executives are likely to be asked about the potential costs of tariffs on Lennar’s earnings call. They may also be asked if Trump’s vow to carry out mass deportations has affected the availability of construction workers, a disproportionate number of whom are immigrants.

Lennar shares fell nearly 9% last month as investors looked ahead to another year of elevated interest and mortgage rates.

Long gone are the days when Elon Musk was merely ‘the Tesla guy.’

The billionaire entrepreneur has brought electric cars to the mainstream and reimagined rocket launches and space travel. He’s working to develop brain implant technology that allows humans to control devices with their thoughts. He aims to reinvent social media with X and introduce fully autonomous humanoid robots via Tesla’s (TSLA) Optimus.

And now Musk is taking on his boldest mission yet—tackling government waste as President Trump’s head of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

As if he wasn’t already powerful enough, the world’s richest man has become infinitely more influential since Donald Trump won the White House. 

A lot of investors are saying that’s a good thing for Tesla stock. And it could be. But we think investors focused on TSLA are considering the wrong Musk company for 2025. 

Of all of his ventures, Tesla is not the one positioned for the most success this year. 

That would be xAI, his AI startup. 

xAI: A Brief Overview

Founded about two years ago, xAI was created to develop foundational AI models to rival that of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. In that time, xAI has launched several models, the latest of which – Grok-3 – just debuted in late February. And from the looks of it, the AI is quite capable.

It was developed using over 10 times the computing resources of its predecessor, Grok-2, leveraging a massive data center equipped with approximately 200,000 GPUs. The model introduces sophisticated reasoning features, which allow it to deconstruct problems into manageable components and perform self-fact-checking to ensure accuracy before providing solutions. And it also includes a new Deep Search feature – an integrated AI-powered search engine designed to reduce the time users spend hunting for information by providing detailed explanations for its responses. 

According to xAI, Grok-3 outperforms other incumbent AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek in areas such as mathematics, science, and coding. 

It seems to be a new landmark model.

And thanks to this rapid success, xAI is currently in talks to raise up to $10 billion from multiple investors at a $75 billion valuation… 

Meaning that, less than two years after it was launched, xAI is already worth more than 70% of the companies in the S&P 500. 

But this may still be just the beginning for the startup. 

Revolutionary Minds, Revolutionary Companies

Of course, the thing about world-changing businesses is that they start with world-changing people. Those folks have revolutionary ideas. And when funded with billions of dollars, they turn those ideas into world-changing businesses.  

After all, Apple (AAPL) only became what it is today thanks to Steve Jobs, who came up with the idea of the iPhone. Jobs then leveraged the enormous amount of money Apple was making off its computers to create the iPhone. And voila… Apple became a trillion-dollar company.  

Similarly, Microsoft (MSFT) grew into a tech titan because of Bill Gates, who came up with the idea of Windows. Gates used the money Microsoft was making off its PCs to further develop Windows. And that allowed Microsoft to become a trillion-dollar company. 

World-changing people with ample resources create world-changing businesses. 

So… if you want to invest in world-changing businesses… start with the world-changing people gathering the resources necessary to bring their visions to life. 

That is exactly the situation we have with Musk and xAI today.

The 18 Hong Kong banks comprising the territory’s joint task force on lending to small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) have agreed to discussions with other banks to assist SMEs in addressing cash flow pressures. Six member banks of the Hong Kong Association of Banks’  commercial banking group took the lead in January to negotiate fairer financial arrangements for SMEs facing capital-flow difficulties, especially in the construction sector; Other SME Financing Task Force member banks agreed to join the initiative.

Under the just-announced joint consultation mechanism, when an SME faces sudden, unexpected liquidity woes, it can directly contact its lender bank for relief. After obtaining the client’s authorization, the lending institution can contact other banks to discuss financial arrangements to reduce the pressure on the SME’s liquidity. The bank can then address the situation quickly and smoothly, focusing on reducing the SME’s cash-crunch worries. SMEs represent 98% of Hong Kong’s businesses, employing 45% of its private-sector workforce, according to government data.

In October, 16 major Hong Kong banks said they would provide 370 billion Hong Kong dollars ($47 billion) in their loan portfolios for SMEs. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority—the special administrative region’s de facto central bank and regulator—slashed its countercyclical capital buffer ratio to release another HK$300 billion to HK$400 billion in liquidity to facilitate more lending to SMEs.

Businesses that previously borrowed funds under the government-backed loan plan can apply for a principal repayment grace period of up to a year. Additionally, SMEs that borrowed from banks on the open market—outside the government program—can apply to renew their partial principal repayment options. The 18 banks on board are HSBC Holdings, Hang Seng Bank (owned by HSBC), Citibank (Hong Kong), Standard Chartered Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, Bank of Communications (Hong Kong), Bank of East Asia, China CITIC Bank International, China Construction Bank (Asia), Dah Sing Bank, DBS Bank, Fubon Bank, Fulong Bank (Hong Kong), Nanyang Commercial Bank, OCBC Bank (Hong Kong), Shanghai Commercial Bank, and PAO Bank.          

If you simply must have blue text bubbles—but don’t require all of Apple’s newest phone technology—the iPhone 16e could right for you, reviewers say.

Apple (AAPL) announced the 16e last month, a comparatively low-cost iPhone that includes its latest AI features but not such capabilities as MagSafe wireless charging technology and the Dynamic Island function that lets users see some background activities—like timers and map directions—on their home screens.

Investopedia read a selection of reviews to get a sense of early responses to the phone, which was to hit stores yesterday. Here’s a selection of what we found, along with links to the reviews.

For $600, the phone comes without some features that are present in other iPhone 16 models. While that means it might not match everyone’s needs, several reviewers wrote, it might be a fit for someone who hasn’t upgraded in a while or is dipping their toe in the iPhone waters for the first time.

“It’s for the person holding on to an iPhone 8 Plus or iPhone X, ready to upgrade because their more than seven-year-old smartphone isn’t working too well nowadays. They want a new phone, and it just needs to be an iPhone,” says a Wired review.

A CNET review said that Apple chose to implement some of its best features in the simplified model, citing battery life (though the review says more testing would be needed), a high-quality camera (though no ultra-wide camera), quick upload speeds, and Apple emergency features including satellite support to reach emergency responders when there’s no cell signal. TechCrunch says the iPhone 16e “isn’t an exciting device. It’s a safe one,” with reliability that keeps costs down.

While other models in the iPhone 16 family start just shy of $800, some reviewers think the list price for the iPhone 16e is still too high, given the omissions. Other budget-friendly phones on the market offer more bells and whistles at a lower cost, several wrote.

“On Android, you can buy a $500 phone with a fast refresh-rate screen, two rear cameras, seven years of software support, and wireless charging. On iOS, you can buy this $599 phone with one rear camera, a standard 60Hz screen, wireless charging (but no MagSafe), and an ample but unstated amount of software support. Apple has no competition when it comes to phones running iOS. The company can gate-keep these conveniences behind a higher price tag, and that’s simply the way things will be,” reads a review from The Verge.

Still, USA Today says it’s “the best entry point into Apple’s ecosystem in years,” and a step up from the company’s iPhone SE, which had its third generation release in March 2022.